First, Norplant was diffused through intensive local campaigns called safaris in which policemen, local political leaders, and military forces participated in an all-out effort to gain adopters of the new contraceptive in each community in Indonesia.

My father, who had never had children, was delighted at the birth of my brother, sister, and me, and our bedtime stories were full of real-life accounts of my father's travels, such as safaris from Capetown to Cairo in search of new trees.

Most prominent among these was Frederik van Zyl Slabbert, a brainy, telegenic former leader of the liberal opposition in the white Parliament who organized the earliest "safaris" to bring influential whites into contact with the outlawed movement.